The Ministry of Justice has the money. The Minister has admitted it publicly. Yet thousands of Jamaicans — most of them domestic abuse victims seeking divorce — face the courts alone, priced out of justice by an administration that has chosen inaction over intervention.

KINGSTON, Jamaica — June 6, 2026 — The Jamaican Government is sitting on the fiscal space to expand legal aid to civil cases while tens of thousands of poor Jamaicans — overwhelmingly women fleeing domestic abuse — navigate the courts without a lawyer, unable to pay the fees that stand between them and justice. That damning verdict was delivered on the floor of Parliament this week by Opposition Spokesperson on Justice Zuleika Jess, who revealed that the Minister of Justice had publicly confessed to the Standing Finance Committee that the money exists. The Government has simply chosen not to spend it.